This is Richard Rohlin, (gentlemanadventurer.org), talking about who you shouldn't marry.
Part Three
Spotting
an Ahab (Cont’d)
Third, an Ahab will shift
blame. Psychologists call this having an “external locus of control.” Simply
put, when things are going badly, it’s never their fault. It’s your fault, or their parents’
fault, or their employer’s fault or the system’s fault. We see this plainly
demonstrated in Ahab’s confrontation with Elijah in the wilderness, where he
blames Elijah for the years of drought that Israel has experience as a result
of God’s judgment:
When
Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?”(1Ki
18:17)
Elijah is quick to point
out Ahab’s error, as well as remind him of the true source of Israel’s woes:
And he
answered, “I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father’s house,
because you have abandoned the commandments of the LORD and followed the
Baals…” (1Ki 18:18)
This brings us to an
important question you should ask yourself about any young man: does he shift
blame or take responsibility? Now, this is tricky, my dear, because some Ahabs
are smart enough to shift the blame while at the same time making it look like
they are taking responsibility, especially if you are accommodating.
They will verbally
castigate themselves all the while dropping hints to you about how hard their
environment is, how negative the culture or people around them are, or the
seemingly insurmountable odds that they have tried in vain to overcome – and
they will do this until you have no choice but to sympathize and tell them that
it isn’t really their fault.
That’s actually a really
good place to transition to the fourth unique trait of an Ahab – Ahabs will
ultimately look to a woman to solve their problems. It might be their mother,
or their girlfriend, or the suspiciously-large circle of girls they hang out
with that are “just friends” (which should also always be a warning sign, by
the way), but at the end of the day they will seek their validation and
fulfillment in the Woman instead of the Word.
The classic example of
this is found in 1 Kings 21. Ahab, who is already moping because of the
judgment pronounced upon him by Elijah, decides to engage in a little retail
therapy. He sees the vineyard of Naboth (which is roughly Hebrew for “vineyard
guy”, leading me to think that this must have been a very nice vineyard indeed)
and wants to buy it.
Naboth won’t sell,
because of his desire to adhere to a stipulation of the Mosaic Law, and so Ahab
promptly goes to his room and pouts and refuses to eat until Jezebel finally
solves his problem via an elaborate scheme involving trumped-up blasphemy
charges and a kangaroo court.
There is a trickier
variety of this which is more difficult to spot – the man who pines away for
female companionship or recognition, and uses this to fuel the engine of
self-pity. Like any other kind of sin, this is ultimately a corruption of
something that God created, in this case the God-given need for woman. And I
don’t even mean to say that all men who greatly desire female companionship are
like this. The rule should be, if you even have to ask if your candidate is the
exception, he probably isn’t. As I said earlier, he should need you to make his
good life great, not his miserable life good.
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